ibeacon quick start guide

iBeacon Quick Start Guide - Andy Cavallini (Gaia-Matrix) - [email protected] - http://www.gaia-matrix.com

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iBeacon Quick Start Guide for

Marketers and Retailers

iBeacon Technology in 5 minutes through 9 Questions & Answers

Version: 2014-02-03

Andy Cavallini (Gaia-Matrix)

[email protected]

http://www.gaia-matrix.com

To know even more about iBeacon technology, feel free to download my white-paper titled “iBeacon Bible” from: http://www.gaia-matrix.com


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1) What’s “iBeacon technology”?

iBeacon technology allows Mobile Apps (running on millions of recent smartphones and tablets) to know how close they are to tiny, battery-operated, low-cost, wireless transmitters called “iBeacons” (or just ”Beacons”).

iBeacons broadcast signals using the well-known Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard, allowing: • precise Micro-location (that’s indoor-geo-location) • Contextual interaction/engagement , as proximity to an iBeacon

can trigger some specific App functionalities

iBeacons can be placed wherever you want: if your Mobile device gets within range, your iBeacon-enabled App can tell them apart and therefore recognize the context of the world around itself.

2) Can you make an example of iBeacons at work?

Let’s pretend that Joe is a shoes store-owner and that Jane is a loyal shopper who installed Joe’s store iBeacon-enabled Mobile App on her iPhone 4S (or Galaxy S3).

Jane is visiting Joe’s store; an iBeacon mounted under a store-shelf will alert Jane’s iPhone that she (Jane, loyalty-card #28746) is in a particular physical location, for example in front of Nike shoes, and allows Joe to monitor her behaviour (for how long is she looking at Nike shoes?).

Thanks to this technology, Joe is also able to serve Jane customized offers (for example a discount-coupon for Nike shoes) according to her behaviour, shopping history, etc.

3) What’s “Micro-location”?

iBeacon technology allows your Mobile device to understand its position even indoors, where GPS signals aren’t available: that’s geo-location with a very high level of granularity, conventionally known as Micro-location .

iBeacon-enabled Apps listen for iBeacons and can qualitatively monitor their distance as proximity changes over time: • “Immediate” (less than 50 cm) • “Near” (approximately between 50 cm and 2/5 m) • “Far” (more or less between 2/5 m and 30/50 m)

Radio signals – especially indoors – jump around constantly, that's why ranges are employed instead of precise distances.

4) What’s “Contextual interaction/engagement”?

iBeacons signals enable interaction with Mobile Apps, for example triggering some App functionality to perform a specific action on a specific Mobile device – at exactly a specific time and in a specific location.

Mobile devices automatically react to when they come within range of iBeacons: there is no need to take your iPhone or Galaxy S4 out of the pocket to manually start the pertinent iBeacon-enabled App.

iBeacons therefore make it possible to effortlessly engage with people in a physical space (even indoors) through their smartphones or tablets; interaction and engagement can be furthermore improved if the App is connected to the Net, for example to fetch the user’s shopping history, updated info about traffic or meteo, etc.


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5) Is iBeacon technology power-hungry?

Geo-location/Micro-location and Bluetooth are considered battery-drainers; actually, Bluetooth Low Energy standard (as the name implies) is very, very battery friendly both for the Mobile device and for iBeacons.

6) How can iBeacon technology be valuable for Retail?

The level of targeting that iBeacon technology provides can greatly change how brands and companies interact with customers and improve their shopping experience.

This technology allows to convey specific, contextualized customized deals to shoppers based on the time/day/…, which aisle they’re in, their purchase history, their loyalty profile, etc. Monitoring shoppers behaviour (store visits, walking-paths, etc.) is another valuable possibility: iBeacons allow a Retailer to know (in real-time) that a particular shopper, for instance, has been standing in front of one specific product for more than three minutes; the Retailer can gather if the shopper previously went online on the retailer’s website to check out the same item – that’s an effective example of integration of online and offline shopping, also called “Multi-channel integration ”.

7) Are iBeacons just for Retail?

Some Non-retail significant examples:

• Museums, exhibitions iBeacon technology allows visitors to get information about the objects or products they are seeing and to be timely notified of pertinent events, sessions, workshops, etc. At the same time, it’s possible to track which expositions attract the most foot traffic.

• Mass transit, People Flow Management A train travel App can be aware of which train you are travelling on, and – as you board – automatically starts plotting your train’s real-time progress. An airport interactive guide can show the shortest way from Check-in to your Gate. In a sport stadium your smartphone can direct you to the fastest route from the parking-lot to your seat. In a multi-floor parking garage your Mobile device can help to quickly find your exact parking space.

8) How do I iBeacon-enable an App?

Existing Mobile Apps need to be upgraded to be iBeacon-enabled, but fortunately the impact from a software development point of view is quite limited.

A retailer, for instance, may already have an App shoppers use to manage their loyalty-card and to receive coupons; this App could be quickly upgraded to also interact with iBeacons installed in the retailer’s chain of stores.


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9) Who is currently supporting iBeacon technology?

iBeacon technology is currently supported by: • Apple’s iOS

The following iDevices – running at least iOS 7 – are supported: iPhone 4S or later, iPad 3 or later, any iPad mini, iPod touch 5th generation or later.

• Google’s Android The first version of Android supporting iBeacons is 4.3 (Jelly Bean); many Android devices already support Bluetooth Low Energy: Samsung Galaxy S3/S4, Samsung Galaxy Note II, HTC One, Nexus 7 2013 edition, Nexus 4, HTC Butterfly, Droid DNA, etc.

• Microsoft Microsoft appears to have recently added support for Bluetooth Low Energy in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8; Nokia's recent Lumia WP8 phones are confirmed to include BLE hardware.


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Info about the author

Who is Andy Cavallini and what’s Gaia-Matrix?

Andy Cavallini is a Computer Engineer involved in • designing, managing, implementing software projects • building digital solutions and products for European companies and organizations such as Nectar – Aimia Group (loyalty management), Vibram (high performance rubber soles), the Chamber of Commerce of Milan , Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions (IT solutions for retail), Coop (big-box retailer), etc.

As a Sr. Project Manager and Business Analyst, under the Gaia-Matrix brand, Andy Cavallini works with many international Business and IT professionals.

Contacts

Feel free to contact Andy Cavallini via email:

[email protected]

To know more, visit:

• Andy Cavallini’s LinkedIn page http://www.linkedin.com/in/andycavallini

• Gaia-Matrix blogsite http://www.gaia-matrix.com

To know even more about iBeacon technology, feel free to download my white-paper titled “iBeacon Bible ” from:

http://www.gaia-matrix.com